Date: 26 February, 2025
Type: Engagements
Medium: Design Studios

Studio Tirana – Pallati i Brigadave

Introduction

Between September and December 2020 the NEWROPE Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation organised a design studio that focused on the Palace of Brigades in Tirana.

The Presidential Palace, popularly known as the Palace of Brigades (or ‘Pallati i Brigadave’ in Albanian), is the official residence of the President of Albania. The palace was commissioned by King Zog I and was designed by a group of Italian engineers and architects. However, the king never got to live in the palace and to this day the palace remains uninhabited.

Unable to travel to Tirana as a result of the Covid pandemic, the students had to rely on the input from experts and secondary sources for their analysis. Through a series of online dialogues and a variety of remote sensing tools, including a meet and greet with the team of the palace on Zoom and a simulated taxi ride around Tirana in Google Street View, they developed an understanding of the spatial, social and political conditions in which the palace finds itself.

Hybrid Studio in the Design in Dialogue Lab (Photo by Elias Knecht)

1/5

Context

The Presidential Palace (Albanian: Pallati presidencial), formerly the Royal Palace (Albanian: Pallati mbretëror) and popularly known as the Palace of Brigades (Albanian: Pallati i Brigadave), is the official residence of the president of Albania. The palace was commissioned by King Zog I of the Albanians to serve as his main official residence. The building was initially designed by three Italian architects. Construction started in 1936, but was not finished due to the outbreak of World War II. The building was completed in 1941 by the Florentine architect Gherardo Bosio.

In 1945, it ceased to serve as a royal residence because the monarchist regime was substituted by a Communist-ruled government. Since 1946, it has been used by the Government of Albania for holding official ceremonies and state receptions. In 2013, the palace became an official residence once again, when President Bujar Nishani and his family moved into a reconstructed villa inside the grounds of the palace.

In recent years, the Palace of Brigades has been marked by inaccessibility, confinement, lack of dialogue on reuse, deterioration of physical conditions, misuse of investments, erasure of heritage, ecological insensitivity and procedural opacity. Through the studio and the work of the students we tried to give it a new meaning. We wanted to hand it over to someone or something. This could be new users and uses. Or intentionally none.

Tami Notsani, Untitled, 2016 – Palace of Brigade series

1/5

Structure

The studio was framed by an ongoing engagement with, what we called, the Muses. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. We understood muses as people of different backgrounds with a strong position regarding urban transformations. They included: architect Barbara Buser, art historian Milena Dragicevic Sesic, landscape architect Teresa Galí-Izard, Deputy Mayor of Tirana Municipality Arbjan Mazniku, curators Niels Olsen and Fredi Fischli and Edi Rama, an artist and prime minister of Albania. We see them as inspiring people who are also open to new ideas. Each student group had a chance to work with one of the muses. This voluntary “pairing” could take various forms, from supporting to agreeing, questioning or even opposing. The form and intensity of the collaboration was left to the students and the muse(s) they teamed up with.

Due to the circumstances linked to the spread of Covid-19 and the travel and interaction restrictions imposed by the lockdown, we combined physical and digital presence, face-to-face conversations and virtual meetings. To create more clarity and comfort for the students, we started a ‘digital room’ where one could meet in the form of digital or hybrid sessions or meetings. Instead of constantly sending zoom links back and forth, it offered a fixed digital address, a place where students and team members could always go and where the “door would be open” when someone is there, when a meeting, workshop or something else was taking place. It was like a safe space with a front door and access code, only digital.

The studio consisted of four cycles, each with an own Design in Dialogue session:

I. POSITIONING

The first cycle was about positioning yourself, as an individual and as a group. The aim of this first 4 weeks was to define students’ interests, which topics, spatial configuration or subjects triggered them the most, which questions they wanted to raise and what their position vis-à-vis relevant discussions was. In the first weeks, we also went on a virtual Fieldtrip. The first cycle ended with a Design in Dialogue session where students presented their various positions.

II. COLLECTIVE DESIGN

The second cycle focused on opening up the design process to a variety of actors. The aim of this 3 week period was to further strengthen the students’ position, to define their final output and to prepare an individual workshop setting. There was no predefined format for the second Design in Dialogue session, which was meant to access and integrate knowledge of the many, of experts, assistants and fellow students. In order to allow externals to engage with their project, students had to think about the material, and the spatial setting which would be most suitable to address the difficulties and challenges they were facing in their various projects. In the final week of this phase, during the Design in Dialogue Session, students hosted a series of workshops to collectively think about the trickiest parts of their projects with the aim to let them develop.

III. COLLECTIVE FORM

The third phase focused on the creation of a common output. The aim of these 3 weeks was to design the spatial setting for the collective output. Design in Dialogue in this case meant that students could and should relate to each other in their projects. They started supporting each other with complementary projects, or strengthened their own position by confronting projects with each other. During the Design in Dialogue in the final week of this phase, students worked on the physical representation of their project, starting from such questions as to how they want to visualise their project, and which form would suit best to present it in a virtual space?

IV. VERNISSAGE

The fourth cycle was about preparing the moments of the Vernissage. The various projects were brought together in a short film, which the students developed collectively and which had its premiere during the online presentation of the studio on December 15, 2020. After the film screening there was an opportunity to discuss the film and the various projects with the students and invited (online) guests. The presentation took place via Zoom and was publicly accessible.

Student work

Working in groups, and in close collaboration with others, the students developed projects that approach and unpack the palace from a multitude of perspectives, scales and topics. The projects ranged from proposals for physical interventions in and around the palace to plans for a public campaign to engage the citizens of Tirana in collective efforts to improve the air quality.

After receiving a letter from the Palace of Brigades at the start of the semester, inviting them to engage with it, the students responded with their own letter in which they briefly introduce their projects. The images are taken from their collective film, "Dear Pallati i Brigadave", in which the students are speaking directly to the palace.

Language is everything. Being vigilant means asking your counterpart what they really mean by a particular taboo-breaking utterance, and what they really hope to achieve by saying it. Language allows the exchange of ideas, to opens discussions and talks about us. Language leads to dialogue and therefore to conversation. You, as a palace, need to get into the conversation, you need to be mentioned. (Dialogue in Tourism – Artur Roig Pérez, Samuel Kummer)

1/9

One of your most pressing urgencies is your state of isolation: you are hidden in a forest, your only entrance is next to a busy highway and you are consequently largely unknown by the people of Tirana. To unfold your potential we want to make your isolation permeable and reconnect you to the city growing around you. Could the curiosity of the people in Tirana be triggered by multiple new ways of accessing the palace and could your solitude finally come to an end? (Soft Borders –Ikonija Stanimirovic, Insa Streit, Marlene Metzler)

2/9

To break up your solitude, it's not only important that citizens visit you, but also that you start a conversation with them. Starting a conversation about a certain topic is the start of analysing the reality, questioning it and imagining an alternative one. We imagine a scenario where people learn not only from the organised activities and events, but also from the actions and opinions of others. A process where you and the city start a dialogue and thus get reconnected. (Conversation between the palace and the city – Ivana Luggen, Simona Lazarova)

3/9

In the process of getting to know you better we admired your beauty thanks to Tami Notsani's photographs. We also found closed doors, behind which we imagined hidden realities, putting you in a new light of new/alternative stories. We approached you with a deconstructing attitude. We thought that by removing all the superficial things and keeping only the essentials, we would emphasize your splendor. So that you could finally tell your story in all its facets. You are a palace, which has never been a palace. Now is the moment you have the chance to unlock yourself to the city. (Deconstructing Beauty – Anna Badia Martinez, Alanis Diem, Colin Müller)

5/9

Your sometimes wild, sometimes curated community of plants and other living creatures, creates an atmosphere that lets you get out of the city, slow-down, enjoy the silence, breathe. We see in you the potential to become a place of healing, recovering and rejuvenation. A potential that starts within you and can be projected onto the whole city of Tirana. By making people aware and connecting to knowledge that traditionally already exists in Tirana and thinking of its alternative use, we can break down big-scale global ecological urgencies, like air pollution, into smaller pieces and empower citizens to improve their own physical environment. (Park as a City as a Park– Era Jashari, Michèle Favre, Valeria Moser)

6/9

We feel you have so much more to offer, than you give yourself credit for. In the search for a different perspective on your future, we stumbled across many hidden moments, tucked away in the midst of your garden. The lost pathways, fountains, stairs, mossy walls and pavements, the cracks in your floors, the lonely greenhouse and church. We imagine these places as rich sources of inspiration, a motivation to look differently at places that are sometimes left unnoticed all around us. (Club of Lost Souls – Roc-Andrea Rüegg, Sadia Avdija, Sam Mettraux, Sophia Trumpp)

7/9

We want to stop your loneliness, we want to seek your unused potential, we want to make you self-sustaining. So we propose an auto generating-system of programs, to maintain you through use. We start today, by projecting into a vivid future through the stories we imagine, by setting a value system to ensure you're in good health and company so all of this can happen with the infrastructure we together provide. (Multilayered Reality – Anna Caviezel, Chiara Hergenröder, Noah Schweizer)

8/9

1/9

2/9

3/9

5/9

6/9

7/9

8/9

Credits

[Date] Fall 2020

[Place] Tirana, Albania

[Studio team] Charlotte Schaeben, Evelyne Gordon, Falma Fshazi, Freek Persyn, Ina Valkanova, Lukas Fink, Joël Berger, Meghan Rolvien, Michiel van Iersel, Seppe De Blust, Moritz Köhler.

[Students] Andrej, Sadia Avdija, Anna Badia Martinez, Anna Caviezel, Alanis Diem, Michèle Favre, Chiara Hergenröder, Era Jashari, Elias Knecht, Samuel Kummer, Simona Lazarova, Ivana Luggen, Sam Mettraux, Marlene Metzler, Valeria Moser, Colin Müller, Artur Roig Pérez, Roc-Andrea Rüegg, Noah Schweizer, Ikonija Stanimirovic, Insa Streit, Sophia Trumpp.

[Contributors] Ajmona Hoxha (Architect, iRi Tirana), Arbjan Mazniku (Deputy Mayor of Tirana), Bora Baboci (Architect, Artist), Barbara Buser (Architect and co-founder of Baubüro in situ and Denkstatt in Basel), Guust Selhorst (Architect, Urbanist, iRi Tirana), Johan Anrys (Architect, 51N4E), Joreun Deysen (Landscape Architect - Biologist), Joli Mitrojorgji (Architect / Restoration expert Department of Historic Centres, Vernacular Architecture and Landscape, Institute for Cultural Heritage Tirana), Joni Baboci (Architect, Urbanist, Urban Transformation Adviser Municipality of Tirana), Jutta Benzeberg (Photographer), Milena Dragićević Šešić (Professor of Cultural Policy and Management and the University of Arts, Belgrade), Leart Kola, (Activist, Director of the Institute for Social and Human Studies Tirana), Karine Dana (Architect, Architecture Critic, Film maker), Niels Olsen & Fredi Fischli (Curators, Directors of GTA Exhibitions, ETH Zurich), Marsela Plyku Demaj (Urban Planner, Head of Department National Institute for Cultural Heritage Tirana, Regional Centre for Conservation and Restoration of SEE), Sotiria Kornaropoulou (Architect), Saimir Kristo (Architect, Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Architecture and Design, at POLIS University Tirana), Tami Notsani (Photographer), Teresa Galí-Izard (Landscape Architect, Agronomist and Professor of Landscape Architecture at ETH Zürich), Vildan Gizem Mentese (Civil Engineer & M.Sc. in Architecture), Eren Can Altay (M.Sc. Architect), Müzeyyen Betül Turan, (Architect & M.Sc. Architect), Eda Demir (Architect from Department of Cultural Heritage in Municipality of Istanbul) and Noemi Iten.

[Special thanks] Dhurata Shamia (Director of State and Governmental Services in the Prime Minister Office), Armida Ymeri (Head of the Department of Services in the Directory of State and Government Services Responsible for the Palace of Brigades). Suzana TileDirector of the Palace of Brigades) and the careful and generous staff of the Palace of Brigades.

Resources

Studio Tirana_Letter.jpg (6709.13MB)Newrope_Palace-of-Brigades_Letter.pdf (217388.5MB)